Reader L.G. alerted me to an interesting comment Brit Hume made yesterday on Fox News Sunday. Host Chris Wallace noted the deadly bombing in the parliament building inside the Green Zone and asked Hume if the violence “makes it awfully hard … to claim progress.” Hume, not surprisingly, didn’t see it that way. (from a Nexis transcript, no link available)
“I mean, people are citing the casualty figures. When you decide to fight — which is basically what’s happened here. We’ve decided to put the necessary troops into Baghdad to try to secure the capital in the hopes that that atmosphere created by doing that will allow political progress to go forward.
“There’s going to be more bloodshed when you do more fighting. And the enemy is not going to sit still and just take this. So the enemy is going to pull out all the stops.
“What we have is a situation where some people seem to be reading the newspapers every day, and if there’s a big episode it shows that the strategy is failing. That’s not a mature way to look at it. And we desperately need some people looking at this in a mature way right now.” (emphasis added)
Fascinating. If there’s less violence in Iraq, it’s progress. If there’s more violence, it’s still progress because the mature grown-ups know that unprecedented attacks inside the once-secure and heavily-fortified Green Zone are really just the enemy “pulling out all the stops.”
If we disagree, the problem isn’t just that we’re wrong, it’s that we’re childish. It’s as if the right is rewriting the rules for stages of grief — start with denial (“last throes”), move on to demagoguery (“critics are emboldening the terrorists”), and end up at misplaced, condescending arrogance (“That’s not a mature way to look at it”).
Of course, Hume has the story backwards.
John J. Sheehan, a retired Marine Corps general and former commander in chief of the Atlantic Command, explained this morning why he turned down the “war czar” position in the administration, highlighting what could be described as a problem with the administration’s “maturity.” When exploring whether to take the position, Sheehan found that “there is no agreed-upon strategic view of the Iraq problem or the region.”
There has to be linkage between short-term operations and strategic objectives that represent long-term U.S. and regional interests, such as assured access to energy resources and support for stable, Western-oriented countries. These interests will require a serious dialogue and partnership with countries that live in an increasingly dangerous neighborhood. We cannot “shorthand” this issue with concepts such as the “democratization of the region” or the constant refrain by a small but powerful group that we are going to “win,” even as “victory” is not defined or is frequently redefined.
It would have been a great honor to serve this nation again. But after thoughtful discussions with people both in and outside of this administration, I concluded that the current Washington decision-making process lacks a linkage to a broader view of the region and how the parts fit together strategically. We got it right during the early days of Afghanistan — and then lost focus. We have never gotten it right in Iraq.
The “small but powerful group” that Sheehan refers to, unfortunately, seems to be dictating Brit Hume’s talking points. “Mature” this is not.
Glenn Greenwald wasn’t referring to Hume specifically when he wrote this today, but it’s equally applicable.
[T]he Kagan/Kristol/Krauthammer war propagandists continue to say whatever they have to say in order to find a way to stay in Iraq forever. Our Serious Beltway pundits continue to embrace that reasoning because staying is the only way to avoid the reality of how wrong they were. And the disconnect between what Americans want and think, and what our government (and the “small but powerful” faction that controls it) does, continues to grow without any end in sight. On the most crucial issues faced by this country, nothing matters less to the Kagans and the Fred Hiatts (and, increasingly, to many disturbingly tepid Congressional Democrats) than the views of Americans. Within that disconnect lies most of the sicknesses ailing our political culture.
As it happens, I happen to agree with Hume’s sentiment; we do “desperately need some people looking at this in a mature way right now.” Alas, those calling the shots at the White House, and their sycophants, haven’t realized this yet.